By: Frank James
Special to the Milwaukee Times
Everyone reminisces about the past. People are always reliving, or thinking, about past events that took place. Most people spend time reliving past events where they feel they were successful. This rehashing past glory often leads people to attempt to find people, or go back to places, from their past. The previous actions are ones that often lead to frustration. The past is just that. The past. You can’t go back.
How many times have you remembered a person, and your interactions with them, and smiled. The smile comes from how you remembered the time and moments you may have shared with this person. In your mind this person is still the person you saw them as in the past. No, let me correct the previous statement. The person is as you imagine them in the past. The person has taken a greater aspect in your mind than they ever were in reality. This is a normal act of the mind. The mind glorifies past events and makes them better than they were in reality. The same goes for people. You have made someone larger than life who was only okay in reality. This is fine if you never see the person again.
The letdown many people encounter takes place when they seek out, or meet, the person they have mentally glorified in real life. It may have been years since you last saw the person. Now, they are standing in front of you. You expect the giant from your misremembered past. What you are faced with is reality. In best case scenarios, the person is doing great, looking similar, and you feel exhilarated by seeing them again. In most cases, the person does not match the image your mind has created. Though the person is doing okay, you feel disappointed by the way they are. This is a classic reason why you can’t go back when it comes to seeking people from the past. You ruin your own happy image of the person. You also do the other person a disservice by judging them using an unrealistic scale created in your mind they are unaware of, and could never measure up to.
The fact that you can’t go back also applies to places. I have a fond love for a city in Michigan where I became a man. Detroit is the place I call home. It was where I truly became a man and knew I could stand on my own. It was a rough place, and trust me, if you were weak you didn’t make it. Well, not in the neighborhoods I resided in. I never go back. Why? The Detroit I know and hold dear to my heart doesn’t exist anymore. When I lived in Detroit there were over a million people in the city. I always say that 900,000 of the residents were Black. Was it violent? Yes. But, it was also a place where, if you had sense, you could make it. It was the perfect place for someone with a plethora of bad habits to live while getting their mind right. This was the late 80’s and 90’s. That time is gone. I also understand that the way I remember Detroit may be slanted and misconstrued. Why? My mind focuses on silk shirts, alligator shoes, adventures on Belle Isle, spitting game to females, etc. To go back would be a let down because the people/places that I knew/frequented, are long gone.
Where does the knowledge of the fact of not being able to go back into the past leave a person? In a great place. The place called Now. Now is the only time that exists. Now is where you can create and live new, while freeing yourself from the old. Meet new people. Go to new places. You can’t go back into the past. Be honest. If you could, would you really want to? After all you know where it ends.
Frank James IV © 2026
beingfrankwithfrank@gmail.com
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the writer and not of the Milwaukee Times Weekly Newspaper or HT Group, LLC, its staff or management. “Child Watch” is a weekly column available at https://www.childrensdefense.org/child-watch-columns.
